Antibiotics

Please note that the following are personal notes from my readings. None of it should be viewed as medical advice. Please always consult with your physicians to determine what decisions are best for you and your family.

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been asking physicians for years to be more prudent when prescribing antibiotics in order to help lower the incidence of dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Our antibiotic arsenal is becoming ineffective when a life-threatening illness is on the line because of unnecessary and excessive prescribing by physicians.

Not only is the toxicity of the antibiotics themselves a problem, but destruction of the body’s beneficial flora may play a role in increasing the risk of cancer. A case-control study tracked 2,266 women with invasive breast cancer and 7.953 randomly selected women to function as the control group. Antibiotic use was tracked from computerized pharmacy records. This study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that women who had more than 25 prescriptions for antibiotics over the 17 year period had more than twice the risk of breast cancer as women who had not taken any antibiotics. The risk was smaller for women who took antibiotics for fewer days. However, even women who had between one and twenty-five prescriptions over an average period of 17 years were 1.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than women who didn’t take any antibiotics. This increased risk was observed for all classes of antibiotics.